[Lazarus] IDE UI consolidation (was: Re: lfm as pascal)

[Leslie Kaye]

Martin Friebe wrote:
> <div class="moz-text-flowed" style="font-family: -moz-fixed">Alexander 
> Klenin wrote:
>> I think that while Lazarus IDE has many great features, they are not 
>> well
>> organized. Various Lazarus developers added convenience features with
>> a separate user interfaces, so the features are dispersed all over UI
>> and hard to discover.
>>
>> IMHO the good way forward is to consolidate some feature groups into
>> a common UI, thus giving greater exposure to all included features.
>>
>> I realize that may be a controversial topic, as developers might 
>> "defend"
>> their pet features from consolidation, stating that consolidated UI 
>> is less
>> convenient than specialized ones, but I think there should be a 
>> balance of
>> uniformity versus specialization, and right now this balance is 
>> tipped far
>> on the specialization side.
>>
>> If there is a general agreement, I can prepare detailed proposal for
>> consolidation,
>> but as a quick sketch:
>> 1) "Find procedure" should be merged into "Code explorer"
>>   
> Ok by me. (I never used it :) )  It's partly there anyway.
>
>
>> 2) "Find in files", "Messages" and "Code observer" should be merged 
>> together,
>> with interface most resembling "Find in files"
>>   
> IMHO, this (point 2) would  be even more a specialization. Also I 
> can't see how those 3 relate at all.
>
> Anyway, for that lets wait for docking.
>
>> 3) "Unit list" (Ctrl+F12) should be merged into "Project Inspector"
>> 4) "Find unused units" should be merged into "Unit dependencies"
>>   
> I was thinking  "Unit dependencies" could also be merged to   "Project 
> Inspector"....
>
>
>
>> ... and so on
>>   
> what about:
> - keybard layouts?
> - Menu layouts?
>
> Best Regards
> Martin
>


Pleas do not have docking in the UI!!! It might look cool bot it is a 
pain to use and program.

Windows accidentally un-dock and attach to your mouse then end up 
anywhere so you spend ages trying to get it back to how it was.

Much better to use frames to keep it looking how the developer intended. 
This is also easier to program as all you need to do is change the 
TForms to TFrames then build the main form at run time.
> </div>
>